J. S. Le Fanus Ghostly Tales, Volume 4 | Page 9

stare at these mysterious fabrics,
Peter prepared to pursue his homeward way; having crossed the bridge
and passed the mill, he arrived at the corner of the main-street of the
little town, and casting a careless look up the Dublin road, his eye was
arrested by a most unexpected spectacle.
This was no other than a column of foot soldiers, marching with perfect

regularity towards the village, and headed by an officer on horseback.
They were at the far side of the turnpike, which was closed; but much
to his perplexity he perceived that they marched on through it without
appearing to sustain the least check from that barrier.
On they came at a slow march; and what was most singular in the
matter was, that they were drawing several cannons along with them;
some held ropes, others spoked the wheels, and others again marched in
front of the guns and behind them, with muskets shouldered, giving a
stately character of parade and regularity to this, as it seemed to Peter,
most unmilitary procedure.
It was owing either to some temporary defect in Peter's vision, or to
some illusion attendant upon mist and moonlight, or perhaps to some
other cause, that the whole procession had a certain waving and
vapoury character which perplexed and tasked his eyes not a little. It
was like the pictured pageant of a phantasmagoria reflected upon
smoke. It was as if every breath disturbed it; sometimes it was blurred,
sometimes obliterated; now here, now there. Sometimes, while the
upper part was quite distinct, the legs of the column would nearly fade
away or vanish outright, and then again they would come out into clear
relief, marching on with measured tread, while the cocked hats and
shoulders grew, as it were, transparent, and all but disappeared.
Notwithstanding these strange optical fluctuations, however, the
column continued steadily to advance. Peter crossed the street from the
corner near the old bridge, running on tip-toe, and with his body
stooped to avoid observation, and took up a position upon the raised
footpath in the shadow of the houses, where, as the soldiers kept the
middle of the road, he calculated that he might, himself undetected, see
them distinctly enough as they passed.
"What the div--, what on airth," he muttered, checking the irreligious
ejaculation with which he was about to start, for certain queer
misgivings were hovering about his heart, notwithstanding the
factitious courage of the whiskey bottle. "What on airth is the manin' of
all this? is it the French that's landed at last to give us a hand and help
us in airnest to this blessed repale? If it is not them, I simply ask who
the div--, I mane who on airth are they, for such sogers as them I never
seen before in my born days?"
By this time the foremost of them were quite near, and truth to say they

were the queerest soldiers he had ever seen in the course of his life.
They wore long gaiters and leather breeches, three-cornered hats,
bound with silver lace, long blue coats, with scarlet facings and linings,
which latter were shewn by a fastening which held together the two
opposite corners of the skirt behind; and in front the breasts were in
like manner connected at a single point, where and below which they
sloped back, disclosing a long-flapped waistcoat of snowy whiteness;
they had very large, long cross-belts, and wore enormous pouches of
white leather hung extraordinarily low, and on each of which a little
silver star was glittering. But what struck him as most grotesque and
outlandish in their costume was their extraordinary display of shirt-frill
in front, and of ruffle about their wrists, and the strange manner in
which their hair was frizzled out and powdered under their hats, and
clubbed up into great rolls behind. But one of the party was mounted.
He rode a tall white horse, with high action and arching neck; he had a
snow-white feather in his three-cornered hat, and his coat was
shimmering all over with a profusion of silver lace. From these
circumstances Peter concluded that he must be the commander of the
detachment, and examined him as he passed attentively. He was a
slight, tall man, whose legs did not half fill his leather breeches, and he
appeared to be at the wrong side of sixty. He had a shrunken,
weather-beaten, mulberry-coloured face, carried a large black patch
over one eye, and turned neither to the right nor to the left, but rode on
at the head of his men, with a grim, military inflexibility.
The countenances of these soldiers, officers as well as men, seemed all
full of trouble, and, so to speak, scared and wild. He watched in vain
for a single contented or comely